FRANK OF IRELAND
DOMHNALL AND BRO BRIAN GET SILLY IN FRANK OF IRELAND…
Gleesons Domhnall and Brian get candid about their new cinephile sitcom.
Films, comedy and family are three of the most important things in the lives of Domhnall and Brian Gleeson. So it makes perfect sense that the actor-brothers’ first TV show would combine all of the above. Frank Of Ireland, their new six-part Channel 4 sitcom, follows deluded misanthrope and would-be singer-songwriter Frank Marron (Brian), who’s still living with his mum (Pom Boyd) in the County Dublin town of Malahide. Dumped by his girlfriend Aine (Sarah Greene), but too lazy and entitled to ever turn his professional or romantic fantasies into reality, Frank nurses a wounded ego massaged by factotum-slash-booster Doofus (Domhnall).
The brothers Gleeson, who themselves are natives of Malahide, make a gloriously daft double act in a TV series they wrote and exec-produced alongside Domhnall’s childhood friend, Michael Moloney. “The first thing we wrote as kids was called Legend Of The Monster,” laughs Moloney of their early home-made efforts. “That explains the level of sophistication we were operating at and have maintained ever since.” Domhnall recalls another major childhood opus: “Over 10 years, we shot a 45-minute movie called Father Justice Divine about a crime-fighting
priest,” he says. “I still regard that as our best work.” Adds Brian: “We haven’t moved on that much. The budget’s gone up a bit, but that’s it, really…”
“I’d always thought Brian could be absolutely hilarious as well as being a great serious actor,” continues Domhnall. “Michael and I both thought he might suit this. The three of us enjoyed the idea of Frank staying 13 and never growing up, remaining just as entitled as you are in that phase. Doofus is even younger, maybe nine, and looks up to Frank as you would an older cousin who is so much cooler than you.”
FATHER’S DAY
Moloney admits that writing Frank Of Ireland involved “periods of trench warfare”, but the Gleeson family bond remains unshakeable: their brother Fergus sings in one episode and dad Brendan turns in a spectacularly game performance in the final episode. “Dad worked his way through a very rigorous audition process,” Domhnall jokes. “‘Sorry to call you in again, Brendan, we just need a chemistry read…’”
And as for that fraternal relationship, both brothers insist that what we see on-screen between self-absorbed Frank and put-upon Doofus couldn’t be further from the truth. “I do recognise those aspects of growing up where you take things more literally,” acknowledges Brian. “The world is more immediate, the emotions more extreme. But we’re not really like that,
I promise.” Adds Domhnall quickly, in reference to one of Doofus’ many, many low points, “And I’ve never shat in a bag.”
“Frank imbues himself with this mythic quality, imagining himself as a hero when he really isn’t,” explains Brian. Accordingly, each episode is loosely inspired by a specific film; verbal and visual homages abound. The first, for example, finds Frank laboriously quoting Taxi Driver to, er, a taxi driver before attempting to learn the ways of violence (MMA rather than firearms) to win Aine back from a new boyfriend (Ebony Maw himself, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) who is superior in every sense.
COURT UNAWARES
Another instalment sees Frank and Doofus providing the songs for an all-female am-dram musical of 12 Angry Men, an already risky idea made exponentially worse when it becomes clear that Frank has written all the songs for the wrong legal thriller (swap ‘12 Angry’ for ‘A Few Good’ and you’re there). Other episodes pay tribute to films as varied as Memento, Misery, Home Alone and Reservoir Dogs, while Weekend At Bernie’s was among a multitude of other titles considered then rejected. “There is a danger of going too far with all that,” admits
Moloney. “We tried to ground it by having those references all coming from Frank’s psyche. It’s not the world conspiring to be like a movie; rather it’s somebody who watches too many movies starting to see the world that way.”
Five years in the making, Frank Of Ireland was honed and tightened with the assistance of sitcom maven Sharon Horgan and her production company, Merman. “There’s a comedy spark that Sharon brings,” says Moloney. “A knack of spotting what’s working and being clear about it, that gave us a feeling of security.” Although the shoot was interrupted by Covid just one week before wrapping, Moloney and the Gleesons made the most of the delays to re-assess their work. “We could look at five weeks of stuff and see what we really needed,” says Domhnall. “We could write extra bits, fix parts of it and add depth where it needed it. When we went back in August, you could feel that people were just happy to be back working again. It was lovely.”
Will there be further visits to Malahide? Although there is a neat and relatively conclusive arc to the series, Moloney reckons there are still stories to tell and films to plunder. For now, though, the Gleesons are happy to leave Frank in his own fantasy world. “Michael and Brian are two of my closest friends,” says Domhnall. “It’s lovely to be able to talk to them now and not discuss ‘the B-storyline in episode five’. It’s nice that isn’t the core of our conversations
any more!” Gabriel Tate
FRANK OF IRELAND STARTS 15 APRIL ON CHANNEL 4 AND AS A BOXSET ON ALL 4.
‘DAD WORKED HIS WAY THROUGH A VERY RIGOROUS AUDITION PROCESS’
DOMHNALL GLEESON